Follow the author of this article

Follow the topics within this article

A start-up which develops a bracelet to track women's fertility has raised $30m (£22m) to expand into other aspects of female healthcare and contraception.

Swiss start-up Ava was founded in 2014 and first launched its app and bracelet in 2016.

The company said its bracelet technology, which monitors nine vital signs like skin temperature, heart rate, heat loss and sleep quality, has helped 10,000 women become pregnant by monitoring their cycle.

The £249 bracelet links to a smartphone and allows women to track their fertility cycle daily, finding the 5.3 fertile days per month. Ava says it is able to predict fertility with 96pc accuracy.

The funding round was led by German venture capital firm btov and SVC, the venture capital arm of Credit Suisse. The funding brings Ava's total to $43m. It has grown to 70 employees with offices in Zurich and San Francisco.

In 2016, Ava completed a year-long study with the University Hospital of Zurich ahead of its product launch, using mathematical models for menstrual cycles. The funding will allow Ava to keep investing in clinical trials to study other fertility challenges and complications during pregnancy.

It has also hired Dr Maureen Cronin, formerly chief medical officer at Bayer Schering, to lead product development in areas such as contraception.

Ava chief executive Pascal Koenig said: "Ava’s long-term vision is to accompany women through all stages of their reproductive life by providing data-driven, clinically proven technology that will make a woman’s life easier, healthier and better."

Ava is one of the first companies to simple wearable hardware that can be used to monitor fertility. Other apps, such as Natural Cycles, rely on temperature readings and user data.